Favorites stage 4 Tour of Guangxi 2024 | Fourth sprint in a row, or finally the favorites’ time to shine?

On Friday, the riders face the stage with the most altimeters. Covering 176.8 kilometers, they will tackle 2,835 meters of climbing — definitely not a flat ride. The peloton starts the fourth stage in Bama, Thursday’s finishing point, with the finish line set in Jinchengjiang. The climbing will start early: the first of four unnamed climbs is just 13 kilometers from the start. It could play a key role in establishing the breakaway, as the 5.3-kilometer climb at 6.1 percent is no small hill.

The middle section is filled with more up-and-down riding. After a 5.4-kilometer climb at 4.1 percent, the peloton reaches the literal high point of the stage: a 2.9-kilometer climb at 6.7 percent halfway through, with the road rising and falling well before that. After a long, winding descent, the last categorized climb is also challenging, at 3.8 kilometers with a 6 percent gradient, situated 35 kilometers from the finish.

And it’s not quite over yet. Eleven kilometers from the finish, there’s another hill with bonus seconds on offer, potentially disrupting the sprinters’ plans. From there, it’s mostly downhill toward the finish line, where the final kilometer rises slightly uphill.

Another warm day in the Far East. The autumnal scenes we're currently seeing back home are nowhere to be found in Guangxi. Instead, the men are getting temperatures around 27 degrees Celsius, with a chance of showers. Wind is not expected to play a significant role in the race.

Like stage three, it’s a bit of a guessing game as to who will take the win in stage four. Will it be a sprint from a (reduced) peloton, or will the attackers finally get their chance? If it’s a sprint, we likely won’t see the heaviest sprinters. Instead, we look towards guys like Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost). Thursday’s winner and new race leader Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech) is also solid on short hills, and he’s in excellent form.

We also have our eye on Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek). The American can both sprint and attack, and this terrain suits him well. Milan Fretin (Cofidis) was well positioned in stage three and might benefit from a reduced peloton on Friday. Robert Stannard (Bahrain-Victorious) seems to be returning to form — he’s built for this kind of work. Other attackers include Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates) and Victor Lafay (AG2R La Mondiale). Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates) was active on Thursday’s hills — will he try again?

Normally, we’d also mention Milan Vader here, but the defending champion has crashed out. Now, all eyes at Visma | Lease a Bike are on Koen Bouwman. Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe has no pure sprinter, so they’ll be looking to Maximilian Schachmann for this type of stage.

Top favorites: Quinn Simmons (UAE Team Emirates) and Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost)